Alcohol Use & Abuse

Alcohol is one of the most commonly used psychoactive substances. Problems related to alcohol misuse by major public health concern. It has been estimated that alcoholism is the third major cause of death in the world, even without including a number of unreported alcohol-related deaths.

Although alcohol has been used for recreational and religious reasons for a number of years, evidence of its use in the Neolithic Period (c. 10, 000 BC) was acquired by the discovery of Stone Age beer mugs.

There are two schools of thought regarding the genesis of alcoholism: (1) social learning theory, and (2) the disease models of alcoholism. Social learning theory suggests that alcoholism is a learned behavior from which the individual’s can relearn and correct themselves with the help of behavioral therapy.

The disease model suggests that susceptibility of an individual to addiction is decided by genetic, neurobiological, or psychopathological causes. However, researchers have claimed that a combination of number of factors leads to the occurrence of alcohol problems.